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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22388398">Negotiations</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx'>xpityx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Witcher Fics [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:21:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22388398</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Geralt grit his teeth, readying himself for the noise of the ship docking. It was jarring nonetheless, and some of his audio processing modules shut down in protest. </p><p>Witchers were never supposed to go into space, he reflected—not for the first time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Witcher Fics [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>176</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Negotiations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yo, just practising writing Sci-fi because I love it, but I find it hard to maintain my writing style - so any feedback appreciated. Beta'd by the awesome <a href="https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/merulanoir/pseuds/merulanoir">Merulanoir</a>  &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Geralt grit his teeth, readying himself for the noise of the ship docking. It was jarring nonetheless, and some of his audio processing modules shut down in protest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Witchers were never supposed to go into space, he reflected—not for the first time. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The hum of the air pressure reaching equilibrium, the harsh lights of the craft itself: everything in space was so foreign to the environment he’d been raised to hunt in that his sensors always took 48 hours to realign themselves when he returned to Earth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If only that were the worst of it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His escorts clapped their hands twice as they entered the ship, and the three women and one man waiting for them responded in kind. It was meant to imitate the double flash of a greeting of an Others’ sensor band, and it made Geralt’s lip curl.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A quick scan showed there were no Others on board. Geralt couldn’t decide if that made the show worse or better: they had no need to impress their new benefactors and yet they imitated them anyway. Evidence of them was everywhere: the too-wide corridors and comms pads meant to be operated by three long claws rather than five fingers. He knew Emhyr would never be so stupid as to invite Geralt aboard while an Other was there, but he couldn’t help but scan every room they passed to be sure.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, you’re a W-ICT, right?” said one of his escorts. A young woman, the scar of the Five Clans sigil still red and raw.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What type?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“R-Type.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No way! You’re my first R-Type. I saw an S-Type once. Well, a friend of mine, Deej saw one, but she told me all about it. Huge.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Geralt doubted she’d seen any such thing: low-atmosphere capable W:ICTs had been the last Witchers to come through the Trials, and the first to be destroyed by the Others. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stayed silent instead of replying and the woman fell back into formation, though Geralt could sense her eyes stayed on him as they walked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As they reached the inner core of the ship he wondered for a moment if Ciri would be there, then grinded the thought—and it’s attended hope—down into nothing. Ciri had made her choice; he couldn’t agree with it, but time had lent him some understanding. They spoke sometimes by hi-freq if he was in range, but he hadn’t seen her in person for nearly a full turn.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The two leads in his escort stopped outside a heavy blast door, where they went through the Other-mimicked ritual of double claps while the security stood at parade rest. Voice-prints were scanned and Geralt was given a speculative look. He lifted a lip to show the edge of his viciously sharp, retractable canines, and everyone decided he didn’t need to be searched. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His escort stayed outside as Geralt entered through the massive door. The floor dipped in unexpected ways beneath his feet: settle spaces for the Others when they were no doubt invited to discuss what concessions they would give to the small percentage of humanity they hadn’t annihilated. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You asked for me,” Geralt stated, harsher that he’d meant to. It was his first time seeing Emhyr’s off-world habitat, and the evidence of his betrayal was harder to ignore there than it was on Earth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emhyr regarded him mildly for a moment, before turning and heading through another, lower door that opened and shut at his passing. Geralt sighed and followed him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This room was more familiar, decorated in the same faux-neo style as Emhyr’s rooms dirtside. Geralt went over to the heavily-laden sideboard and followed his nose to a jar of grind. He helped himself, adding boiling water and some powdered milk. It must have been some of the last grind in the galaxy. He eyed the jar for a moment before adding another heaped spoon of the stuff to his drink. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, what did you discover?” Emhyr asked, and Geralt took small pleasure from the fact he hadn’t been the one to speak first.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Execution on the third bell,” Geralt stated.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How many?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Twelve, treason.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emhyr merely folded his hands together and seemed content to wait. The quiet hiss of the air purifiers and Geralt sipping his drink were the only sounds for a moment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Caught a load humans out on the Fifth,” he added. “Heard they had magma bombs, though Sky knows how they didn’t blow themselves up transporting them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What Clan?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“None, they were all from Deep.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emhyr looked away, a frown pulling the lines deeper into his severe face. He put too much faith into the half-mad humans who had survived the Wars underground. The food they produced could barely support their own numbers, let alone the last of humanity, starving and dying on the surface. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Others might be able to survive in the radioactive wastes, but humans could not. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Or perhaps the Deep-dwellers were just another piece in a vast puzzle that only Emhyr could understand. It was hard to tell with him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I understand from Ciri that you have been cooperating with Clan rule,” Emhyr said, once Geralt had finished his grind and set the cup to one side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Geralt shrugged, uncomfortable. It had been Ciri that had convinced him to stop hunting Others, that it would do no good now. It went against everything he’d been bred for, but the War was over, as people were fond of telling him, and they had lost.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ciri hadn’t betrayed him when she’d signed up to Emhyr’s way of thinking, he knew she hadn’t. She had taken the knowledge that she had grown up with and that which Emhyr had provided her upon her return to the Clan, and had found Emhyr’s arguments compelling. Hell, Geralt found them compelling when Emhyr got going, but he couldn’t shake the idea that they were giving up somehow. That by negotiating with the Others they dishonoured the millions who had died fighting them, the Witchers—his siblings—who had been on the cutting edge of the arms race to find something, anything, that could kill an Other. And Geralt could: it was what he was best at, but there had been so many of them, and so few Witchers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That he had stopped killing them was because he loved her, and she believed what Emhyr believed: that the only way for what was left of humanity to survive was by uniting the Five Clans under one banner and following Emhyr into whatever future he saw for them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emhyr stood then, taking the few steps over to where Geralt was standing. He threaded his hands into Geralt’s hair and kissed him. It was angry at first, Geralt suspected that he had never been invited here before because Emhyr knew exactly how he would react to the proof that Others had been welcomed into the same space, and he couldn’t keep that resentment out of their kiss. It was easier on Earth to ignore the fact that the man who had been so desperately glad at the return of his daughter was the same man who had brought the Five Clans to heal, who had negotiated, and deceived, and then </span>
  <em>
    <span>given up</span>
  </em>
  <span> the idea of ever winning so that he could gain favour with the murderers of mankind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But eventually Geralt let Emhyr gentle the kiss into something almost sweet, until they were exchanging chaste presses of lips in between sharing air. Because he also loved this man, even when he hated him. This man who would negotiate with monsters because he believed he could save them all. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I can be found on <a href="https://xpityx.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a>, but if you're just looking for writing updates then I use my <a href="https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic">Twitter</a> for those.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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